Beer Summit

That’s what people are calling President Obama’s White House picnic table gathering with “Skip” Gates and Jim Crowley. Those of us here in Minnesota are more likely to reverse the phrase: Summit Beer is one of our best local brews.
This video of the White House press corps going crazy on the beer summit is remarkable; the snapping cameras sound like a machine gun attack. This may have been the number one photo op of the Obama administration so far:

The fourth participant in the beer summit was Joe Biden. I can understand that. Just as Johnny Carson wanted Ed McMahon sitting at the end of the couch to maintain equilibrium if things started getting weird, so too Barack Obama was comforted by the sight of Joe Biden at the picnic table. Biden seems like a guy who has actually downed a beer or three in his time, so I’m glad he got to put his experience to use.
As for what was said at the beer summit, the conversation seems to have been a bit anticlimactic. Crowley reported afterward that no one apologized to anyone. For Obama, seeing the last of Crowley and Gates was his paramount objective. He just wanted to put the fiasco behind him, so for him it was a farewell party.
Hmm. You might want to be careful how you explain that to Joe Biden.